Tumbling into A New Experience
By Heather Renault
On January 2, while on my way to work for the first time in 2020, I fell down the stairs of my house. I remember thinking, “hmm, 2020, this better not be what the year will be like.”
Oh, how little did I know. After all, who could imagine 2020?
I have been in enrollment management since 1998. In 2016, I came to the Milken Institute School of Public Health to work with graduate students. About a year and half ago, I slightly changed direction and became the Assistant Dean of Student Services. Now, I have the opportunity to work with enrollment and current students.
My favorite day of the academic year has always been graduation. It is the day I see students walk across the stage, meet back up with parents who are filled with pride, and witness our future leaders continue on their journeys.
The 2019 graduation celebration was the first time I helped plan the actual ceremony and it was amazing!
Fast forward to 2020.
It unfolded much like my tumble down the steps, hard, fast and unexpected. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing guidelines, we had to close the university and send students home. Suddenly, in late March, we were faced with how to make a virtual graduation ceremony personal and meaningful. We couldn’t gather in person, but we wanted each graduate to feel honored and cherished. Each student has committed their time, their money and their grit to earn a degree. Each graduate deserves to feel recognized, celebrated and honored.
After many ideas, brainstorming and late nights, our plan was hatched — and we only had four weeks to do it! We held the ceremony over Facebook Live, and each graduate was honored with their own PowerPoint slide.
The slides were a way for us to celebrate each student and give them their “walk across the stage.” I envisioned and saw posts of students celebrating with families and taking photos by their slide!
It was a great moment — one that due to technology we can pause and replay!
But we are about more than that moment. Our school, our students and our community is about relationships and connecting with one another. With innovative thinking, creativity from faculty members and our staff, we were able to add the breakout sessions. Nothing can substitute for shaking a hand or a congratulatory hug, introducing parents to mentors, or posing with Dean Lynn Goldman at 950 New Hampshire Ave, but we hope the Zoom rooms provided some type of connection and moment to reunite with friends and professors.
Was a virtual graduation ideal? No! But I hope that each graduate was able to enjoy and reflect on their accomplishments. In a year full of firsts and new experiences, a virtual graduation was definitely a new experience to be had.
I look forward to being surrounded by bustling energy on campus again soon, surrounded by our students and all that makes Milken Institute School of Public Health a top-ranked school of public health in the nation’s capital.
And I sure hope 2021 doesn’t start with a tumble down the stairs.
Heather Renault, MS, is the Assistant Dean of Student Services at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.
